This is a forum of anti-Islamic activists who are trying to find practicable solution to the explosive growth of Muslim population in the West. Some activists also try to find practicable solutions to other global problems.

Ashura is a memorial day for Hussein bin Ali, leader of the Shi'ite sect, who was executed by the army of the Sunni regime in southern Iraq in the year 680 CE, 1333 years ago.

In 1802, after having seized control of most of Arabian Peninsula, the Saudi warlord Abdulaziz attacked Karbala in Iraq, killed the majority of its inhabitants, destroyed the shrine of Imam Hussein, where Prophet Muhammad’s grandson is buried, and his followers plundered everything that they could lay their hands on. The establishment of that dynasty has resulted in the propagation of the most fundamentalist form of Islam in its long history, which eventually gave rise to Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, and now to IS and al-Baghdadi. source: www.deccanherald.com/content/437261/

Arabs fear Iran, which has been the local superpower and bully for thousands of years. It’s not just the ethnic difference (Arabs are Semites, Iranians are Indo-European) but religion as well. Arabs are largely Sunni (as are about 80 percent of Moslems) while most Iranians are Shia (about ten percent of Moslems). The Iranians chose Shia Islam mainly to be different from the Arabs who most Iranians see as inferior. source: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/articles/20140928.aspx

The Iranians have been defeating Arabs for thousands of years and are currently calling for Shia (Iranian) control of the Moslem holy places in Saudi Arabia. This has caused a growing animosity between Iran and the Gulf Arabs. The Sunni Arabs stick it to the Iranians by encouraging Iranian Arabs and Sunnis (the Indo-European Baluchis in the southeast) to rebel. The Gulf Arabs also provide more cash and weapons support for the local opponents of pro-Iranian groups throughout the region. The conflict between Sunni and Shia, and has been going on for over a thousand years. While some 88 percent of the 1.3 billion Moslems on the planet are Sunni, about 11 percent are Shia. While most other Islamic sects just represent religious differences, many Shia believe they should be running the Islamic world, and that all Moslems should be Shia. The Sunnis disagree, often violently. What has kept the Shia cause alive all these centuries is the fact that some 90 percent of Iranians are Shia. Iran (also known as Persia, or Parthia), has been the major power in the region for over 3,000 years. For example, the Parthians were the one group the ancient Romans could not defeat. While Persia was overrun by the initial wave of Islamic conquest in the 7th century, the Iranians soon developed their own distinct form of Islam and eventually became Shia. So did many others in the region. Today, Bahrain and Azerbaijan are two-thirds Shia. Iraq is 60 percent Shia. There are many countries with a Shia minority. In Lebanon, the Shia are about 35 percent of the population. In Saudi Arabia, the ten percent of the population that are Shia are concentrated in the eastern part of the kingdom, where the oil is. There are many other Moslem nations with Shia minorities, including Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and India (where about ten percent of the 145 million Moslems are Shia.) While the Arabs take great pride in the fact that Islam originated, and spread, from Arabia, there has always been an uneasy feelings that the Iranians would one day take over. When the original Arab Caliphate (ruler of all Moslems) began falling apart a thousand years ago, Shia Iran became relatively stronger. But then a series of external events saved the Arabs from Iranian domination. The Mongols smashed the Iranians up real good. A few centuries later, as the Iranians recovered, the Turks moved in to protect the Arabs. When the Turkish Empire fell apart a century ago, Europeans and Americans arrived to keep the Iranians from taking care of their "Arab problem". After World War II, all seemed well in the Persian Gulf. The Iranians were ruled by a monarchy, which recognized Arab control of Islam's holy places in Saudi Arabia. Then, in the late 1970s, the Iranian monarchy was overthrown. The revolt was supported by the Shia clergy, which was always more politically active, and better organized, than the Sunni clergy in Arabia and elsewhere. The Iranian rebels had planned to establish a democracy, but then Iraq (led by Saddam Hussein) invaded Iran in 1980, hoping to grab Iranian oil while the Iranians were disorganized from their revolution. That changed everything. The Iranians got organized quickly, the Shia clergy took over “temporarily” and democracy got put on hold. “Temporary” turned into permanent as the clergy turned Iran into a theocracy, run by the senior clergy. Worse yet, the clergy called for a world-wide religious revolution. The world was to be converted to Islam, Shia Islam. But because most Moslems are Sunni, the Iranian religious revolution didn't get very far. It wasn't for want of trying. The Iranian Shia sent money and guns to Shia revolutionaries all over the region. This caused some noise, and death, but never really gained much traction. The Sunnis fought back. The hard core Sunni clerics had always considered the Shia to be heretics, and this business of Shia religious revolution just made the Sunni fanatics madder. Even before the radical Shia clergy took over in Iran, radical Sunni clergy were preaching Islamic world conquest. That slowly grew, until it became al Qaeda, and other like-minded groups, in the 1990s. But it got worse. Even before the "Islamic Republic of Iran" appeared in the 1980s, Saudi Arabia was funding religious schools all over the Islamic world, and encouraging the persecution of Shias. But while the Iranian theocracy was getting itself established, the Saudis, and other wealthy Sunni Arabs in the Persian Gulf, were funding Sunni radicalism, and encouraging anti-Shia violence. The Shia must not be allowed to spread their heretical teachings. This battle has largely been ignored in the West, but it has been going on for decades, and thousands die each year because of it. As bad as Saddam Hussein was, the Sunni world saw him as their defender against Shia Iran. When Saddam fell, Sunnis, especially Sunni Arabs in the Persian Gulf, saw Iran taking over Iraq, because 60 percent of Iraqis are Shia, and then taking over the Persian Gulf. While the West just saw Saddam as a nasty tyrant, the Sunni world saw him as someone who knew how to handle Shia scum. Again, this aspect of Saddam's popularity in the Moslem world went largely unreported. But the Shia angle is key. A major component of al Qaeda's attraction is its willingness to go after Shia. This is why Iran never provided much support for al Qaeda. That Iran provided any at all merely demonstrates how eager rabid Iranian religious radicals were to strike a blow at the unbelievers (the West). But most Iranians hate al Qaeda, and Sunni radicals in general. Again, it doesn't get reported much in the West, but in Iran, and Shia areas elsewhere, the latest terrorist attack against Shia anywhere, is always big news. Can the Iranians "control" the Iraqi Shia, and form a more powerful Shia alliance that could threaten Sunni control of the Persian Gulf? As a practical matter, no. For one thing, most Shia Arabs are Arabs first and Shia second. Iranian Arabs get treated the way Iranians treat all Arabs; poorly. Secondly, the Western nations are not going to allow Iran to build a Shia empire. It's simply not going to happen. Even most Iranians don't want any part of this world conquest fantasy, which is only embraced by a rabid religious minority within Iran. A more likely conflict is one within Iran, between the radical religious minority, and the majority of Iranians who are tired of being ruled by a clerical dictatorship. Within Iraq, there are many Shia factions. The more determined ones (and there are more than one) are willing to use terror and violence to establish a religious dictatorship in Iraq. But they are only factions and the main ones (mainly the Badr and Sadr groups) were crushed by Iraqi security forces in 2008. Iraq, as a whole, is not tolerant of more dictatorship. Iraqis have seen what a religious dictatorship has done to Iran, don't want Iranians telling them what to do, and don't want another Sunni Arab dictator either. source: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htterr/articles/20130825.aspx

The war of words (and occasional violence) between the Sunni Arabs of Arabia and the Shia Iranians does have one beneficial angle. Each side accurately accuses the other of various political crimes and gets these ugly facts out into the open. Many of the accusations are not made up but are simply accurate accounts of what is going on. Thus Iran broadcasts details of how the Sunni states on the Arab side of the Gulf discriminate and generally abuse their Shia citizens. The Arab media, using equally excellent sources inside Iran, detail how the religious dictatorship in Iran abuses its own people. For people on both sides of the Gulf these media battles are quite informative. Western diplomats and intelligence services also find this rather large flow of accusations to be most informative. The war between Shia and Sunni has been going on for over a thousand years and is normally a low key affair, marked by obscure theological arguments and a lot more social bigotry against the “others.” Since Shia have always been the minority, they get the worst of it. The Shia are also more vulnerable because of their custom of revering many of their notable historical figures with shrines. Sunni call this blasphemous idolatry and often attack or destroy the shrines and frequently hide or destroy the corpses of these ancient Shia leaders. While senior clerics from all sides oppose the desecration of graves, Sunni holy warriors, and many lower ranking clerics, are not restrained. Recent Sunni terrorist attacks on Shia shrines in Iraq and Syria has made it more difficult for Iran to aid al Qaeda (which is basically a Sunni religious fanatic organization) against their common enemies (the U.S., the West, current governments in Arabia). Al Qaeda leaders sometimes try to restrain their followers when it comes to Shia shrines, but that message does not have much impact at ground level. This is bad for both Iran and its Sunni neighbors because the street level anger and hatred will persist long after the leadership agrees to halt the warmongering. source: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iran/articles/20130507.aspx

About a third of the Islamic terrorism deaths in the last decade occurred in Iraq, which is still a battleground in the growing war between Shia (backed by Iran) and Sunni (backed by Saudi Arabia) Islam. This conflict goes largely unreported in the West but it is a major concern to most Moslems, even in countries where Moslems are a minority (and gangs of radical Shia and Sunni battle each other and is seen as just some more criminal gangs by the police). Thus the effort by Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is not just a threat to the infidel (non-Moslem) West but more immediately to the oil-rich Arab states in the Persian Gulf. While these Arab nations are wealthier and better armed than Iran, the Iranians have more people and a long (several thousand years old) reputation for defeating Arabs militarily. source: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htterr/articles/20121212.aspx

In Pakistan the security forces count themselves fortunate that they got through Muharram (a month long period of religious celebrations particularly important to Shia) with only about 40 Shia killed by Sunni Islamic terrorists. The Pakistani Taliban are particularly eager to kill Shia... source: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/india/articles/20121209.aspx

The Islamic rulers of Egypt have resumed diplomatic and other relations with Iran. This is not popular with most Arabs, who back the current unofficial war between largely Sunni Arabs and Shia Iran. There’s also the ethnic angle, with Arabs being Semites and Iranians Indo-European. Iran has made no secret of its desire to become the leader of the Moslem world, at least in a religious sense. That job is now shared by Saudi Arabia and major centers of Islamic learning, with Egypt being one of the main ones. As a result, the reappearance of Iranian Shia religious pilgrims in Egypt (after a three decade absence) has caused unrest among Sunni Islamic conservatives. Centuries ago Egypt was Shia, and there are still some Shia religious shrines in the country. Egyptian Islamic conservatives are threatening violence against the visiting Iranians, and against the Egyptian government for allowing this sacrilegious state of affairs. Iran is also accused of trying to convert Sunnis to Shia Islam and sponsoring anti-Sunni terrorism wherever it can (especially in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq). Sunni conservatives consider Shia heretics and most Sunni Islamic terrorists consider it their religious duty to kill heretics. source: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iran/articles/20130406.aspx

Iraq: An increase in Sunni Arab violence last month left over 700 dead and nearly 2,000 wounded. This was the worst month for violence since December 2011. Most of the casualties were civilians, usually Shia killed by Sunni Arab terrorists... Because of the increased violence last month, Shia radical groups, who have been largely dormant since 2008, have been increasingly active attacking Sunni Arab mosques and Sunni Arab civilians in general. Many of these Shia radicals want to drive all Sunni Arabs out of Iraq, killing those that resist. A growing number of Iraqi Shia agrees with this solution. Most politicians do not, as trying to chase over four million Sunni Arabs into neighboring countries would bring a strong local and international reaction. source: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iraq/articles/20130506.aspx

Iraqis are frustrated with their inability to end the centuries old violence between Sunni Arabs, Shia Arabs and Kurds (who are mainly Sunnis, but that doesn’t matter). Until 1918, when Turkish rules ended, the Sunni minority was supreme because the Turks were Sunni. Any Shia or Kurdish resistance was quickly and brutally suppressed. When the British took over from the Turks after 1918 they used the existing Sunni Arab dominated bureaucracy to run things. The current government, dominated by Shia politicians, is accused of trying to establish a Shia dictatorship that would be no better than the Sunni dictatorship established in the 1950s when Sunni soldiers murdered the royal family and shut down the parliament of the constitutional monarchy that had existed from 1932-58. The constitutional monarchy was an imperfect democracy, but in hindsight it was better than the decades of Sunni Arab corruption and violence that followed. The British established monarchies in Jordan as well, and that worked out despite the fractious minorities there. But in Iraq the Sunni radicals were not satisfied with compromise and that has led to decades of violence. There is no end in sight, even though the current Shia government, and the Shia majority it represents, is capable to destroying the Sunni Arab minority in Iraq. That is where this is headed, and neighboring Sunni nations (especially Saudi Arabia) are not (as the Iraqi Sunnis hope) going to invade to prevent the destruction of the Sunni Arab minority. Some Sunni Arab politicians recognize this danger, but they have not got enough support among the Sunni Arab population to turn off the Sunni Arab terrorism (which is the only thing that will stop the coming backlash.) source: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iraq/articles/20130618.aspx

Several Sunni Moslem religious leaders have recently issued religious rulings (fatwas) that permit Moslem women to go to Syria and have sex with rebel soldiers to improve the moral of these holy warriors, The lucky guys must be Moslem and fighting as a religious duty, not as mercenaries or just for the adventure of it all. Some of these fatwas permit husbands to offer their wives to rebel fighters. All this is meant to encourage more men to go and fight against the pro-Iranian Syrian government. This is all part of the growing hostility between Sunni Islam (about 80 percent of Moslems and led by Saudi Arabia) and Shia Islam (about ten percent of Moslems and led by Iran). Some religious leaders have even issued fatwas allowing rebels in Syria to rape Shia Moslem women they encounter there. This fatwa came with some restrictions. The rapists must not have had sex (with a woman) for at least two years and the rape should not last more than a few hours so as to not permanently harm the victim and to allow the maximum number of rebels to have at it. source: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmoral/articles/20130703.aspx

The war between Sunni and Shia Moslems is most violent in Pakistan, especially in Baluchistan. Last year there were 113 terrorist attacks against Shia in Pakistan, leaving about 400 Shia dead. The Sunni radicals responsible for this violence have been at it for decades, but it has gotten worse since al Qaeda came along in the 1990s. Nearly half of the attacks occurred in Baluchistan, where the majority Baluchis have come out publicly against the Sunni Islamic terrorists who are killing Shia. Most of the killers in Baluchistan are not Baluchi, and that’s another reason for the Baluchi to be hostile to the government supported terrorists. source: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htterr/articles/20130907.aspx

Iraq's rising violence and concerns of an all-out sectarian war appears set to flare up even further, as Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki recently ordered Muslim prayers to be directed to the Shi'ite holy city Karbala, instead of Mecca. Karabala is where Imam Al-Hussein, a Shi'ite "martyr" who refused to surrender the Islamic Caliphate to Sunni leaders, was killed in 680 CE... "We need to develop the city of Karbala, and it needs to be the place the Muslim world prays to because there lies Hussein," declared Al-Maliki, emphasizing that Muslims need to pray 5 times a day facing the city. In making the announcement Al-Maliki, himself a Shi'ite Muslim, poured oil on the blazing sectarian violence between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims currently engulfing his country and the Muslim world. Karbala itself has been the target of Sunni terrorism, as a Shi'ite pilgrimage holiday was bombed in November. Saudi religious authorities called Al-Maliki's words religious extremism deepening the centuries old sectarian Muslim divide. source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/175607#.UsBbCbSGWM0

The Iranian nuclear weapon program moves forward, and is very popular with nearly all Iranians who feel they are a great and powerful people who need nukes to convince everyone else... The nukes are important because Iran has been increasingly vocal about how Iran should be the leader of the Islamic world and the guardian of the major Islamic shrines (Mecca and Medina) in Saudi Arabia. Iranians believe that having nukes would motivate the Arabs to bow down. The Arabs have been kicked around by the Iranians for thousands of years and take this latest threat very seriously... Bahrain is accusing Iran of providing sanctuary for a Bahraini Shia terrorist and allowing him to smuggle explosives and weapons into Bahrain and run a terrorist operation there. Bahraini police recently caught the Shia terrorists in the act of transferring weapons, explosives, satellite phones and other terrorist gear from an Iranian ship to a Bahraini boat. Iran is also accused of training some recently arrested Bahrain Shia who confessed to terrorist activity and being trained in Iran. Sunni Arab governments have long blamed Iran for instigating Shia Arab minority unrest in Saudi Arabia and the Shia Arab majority rebellion in Bahrain... Islamic conservatives have long preached openly against Shia Moslems, calling them heretics and worse. The Saudi government prevents the Sunni fanatics from acting on these beliefs, but does not prohibit the preaching. In Bahrain, a Sunni Arab minority has long ruled a Shia Arab majority, and this sort of thing is never popular. source: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iran/articles/20140105.aspx

Yemen: The current round of fighting began with a battle over the town of Damaj and a Sunni religious school there. This violence has left over 400 dead and more than 900 wounded since it began on October 30th... Nearly half the casualties have occurred in parts of the north besides Damaj. The Sunni tribes in the north have been fighting the Shia tribes for generations but it has rarely been this bad. Damaj is about 40 kilometers south of the Saudi border and the Sunni religious school has been there since the late 1970s and now has thousands of students, many of them foreign. According to the Shia tribes the school is now producing Sunni Islamic radicals who seek to kill Shia (as Sunni religious conservatives consider Shia heretics.) Damaj has become a battlefield in the struggle over leadership of Islam by Sunni Saudi Arabia (which backs the Islamic conservatives in Damaj) and Shia Iran (which supports the Shia tribesmen of northern Yemen)... Yemen is becoming a failed state, although some locals insist modern Yemen has always been a failed state. The problems of tribalism, religious radicalism and corruption make it impossible for Yemen to function as a country. source: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/yemen/articles/20140213.aspx

In Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern province a 3-year uprising has been raging, hidden from the world. In scenes reminiscent of Libya, Egypt and Bahrain, masked protesters fill the streets, fling rocks and chant "martyrdom is better than oppression"; as police bullets fly. In the Shia-dominated Eastern region of Qatif, there has been growing resentment that despite "standing on top of oil fields that feed the world", local communities suffer poverty, sectarian discrimination and no political freedom. video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7zgifyiqnA

Saudi officials more recently called for the Iranian leadership to be summoned to the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes... There are rumours that the Saudis would buy nuclear bombs ‘off the shelf’ from their friends in Pakistan if Iran ever reaches anything like the nuclear threshold... It is only two years ago that the Iranians attempted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington... America’s attorney general, Eric Holder, announced at a press conference in Washington that the plot had been ‘directed and approved by elements of the Iranian government and, specifically, senior members of the Quds force which is an integral part of the Iranian government.’ source: http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/06/the-conflict-in-the-middle-east-is-far-bigger-than-isis-and-al-qaeda/

Until the civil war reached it two years ago, Aleppo was Syria's largest city and the country's commercial and industrial hub. Now the ancient city lies in ruins, 70 percent of its population has fled, and those who remain live under siege. Rebel-held areas are under constant bombardment by barrel bombs — crudely improvised explosive devices that are dropped from government aircraft. video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zg5UEz_Ao0g

Thanks to continued Russian logistical (spare parts) and technical (maintenance technicians and experts) help the Syrian Air Force continues to send up warplanes and armed helicopters every day to hit rebel targets. Currently the air force is concentrating on ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant). The Assad forces are not bothered by civilian casualties, so the ISIL custom of using local women and children as human shields does not work in Syria. source: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/syria/articles/20140919.aspx

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They sometimes pretend otherwise, but the leaders of Saudi Arabia and Iran hate each other. Both are heavily influenced by theocratic impulses, and their particular ideologies are at war. In short, the Saudi government uses its oil wealth to export Sunni fundamentalist Wahhabism, and Iran’s ayatollahs use their oil proceeds to export Shia-Khomeinism. And while the rot of political Islam runs deep in the Middle East, Iran and Saudi Arabia’s mutual hatred is a major catalyst for regional chaos... Emphasizing this extremism, Iran in 2011 attempted to blow up a crowded restaurant in Washington, D.C. It did so because it wanted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador... The Saudi–Iranian relationship ebbs and flows in ferocity. Today, it is boiling over. At issue is Saudi Arabia’s death sentence against Shia cleric Nimr Baqir al-Nimr. A longtime critic of Saudi Arabia’s restriction of Shia rights, al-Nimr is profoundly unpopular with the House of Saud. Last Wednesday, he was sentenced to death on insurrection charges. As a Saudi preacher in the vein of Khomeinism, al-Nimr is held in high regard in Iran, which has reacted furiously to his sentence. In addition to threatening Saudi Arabia with retaliation if the sentence is fulfilled, Iran has mobilized a global media campaign in al-Nimr’s favor and has also apparently detained a number of Sunni clerics. While it’s true that Saudi Arabia discriminates against its minority Shia population, Iran is simply using al-Nimr as a pretext for its broader anger. Blaming Saudi Arabia for the rise of the Islamic State, Iran is increasingly furious about sporadic ISIS attacks along the central Iraq–Iran border. In turn, Saudi Arabia is highly concerned by the looming advent of an Iranian nuclear weapon and by Iran’s sponsorship of Assad’s genocide. source: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/390713/saudi-arabia-and-iran-clash-tom-rogan

Around 1,000 Shias have been killed in the past two years in Pakistan, a heavy toll on the community that makes up roughly 20 per cent of the country’s 180 million-strong population, most of whom are Muslim. source: tribune.com.pk/story/786605/police-/

A Shia man was shot by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) supporters as he was leaving an Islamic prayer center in southwest Sydney, according to eyewitnesses. The 47-year-old victim, identified as an Iraqi Shia leader at the center, suffered superficial pellet wounds to the face and shoulders, and is currently awaiting surgery in a Sydney hospital. A witness, who did not give his name, alleged that before the shooting, the attackers drove by hurling insults at Shias gathered near the center. "They called us ‘Shia dogs’ and they threatened to come back down tonight and kill you, shoot you, whatever," the witness told ABC Radio. Prior to the shooting, the attackers drove by several times shouting "IS lives forever..." Police are investigating the motives for shooting. "At this point in time, it does not appear that there is any type of motivation for the shooting," said Police Inspector Dave Firth. source: http://rt.com/news/201767-isis-supporters-attack-australia/

In a normal year (when the bribable Yemeni border guards are on duty) the Saudi border troops catch and turn back over a million illegal migrants, but several hundred thousand are believed to get through, at least based on the number later found to have settled in the north or made their way to Europe where they were interrogated by police there. The big problem here is that some of those getting through are Islamic terrorists and that’s why the Saudis also stop those trying to cross illegally into Yemen. But with the Shia rebel success in Yemen the Saudis are now concerned with Iran-backed Shia terrorists and spies coming north. The Saudis could invade Yemen to deal with the problem but even the Sunni majority down there is divided, and not all factions are agreeable to a Saudi intervention. It is a very unpleasant situation for the Saudis. source: http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/yemen/articles/20141124.aspx

In the Persian Gulf Bahrain recently experienced a sharp increase in the use of lethal violence by Shia demonstrators trying to replace the Sunni dominated government with a Shia dominated one... Technically, Shia are heretics to Sunnis, but the Saudi royals have managed to prevent much public discussion of that in Saudi Arabia. Privately, many Saudi clerics have harsh things to say about Shia and non-Moslems (infidels) in general. Saudi Arabia is actually the source of much of the Islam based hatred and radicalism. source: http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htun/articles/20141217.aspx

In the valleys between Damascus and Lebanon, where whole communities had abandoned their lives to war, a change is taking place. For the first time since the conflict broke out, people are starting to return. But the people settling in are not the same as those who fled during the past six years. The new arrivals have a different allegiance and faith to the predominantly Sunni Muslim families who once lived there. They are, according to those who have sent them, the vanguard of a move to repopulate the area with Shia Muslims not just from elsewhere in Syria, but also from Lebanon and Iraq. The population swaps are central to a plan to make demographic changes to parts of Syria, realigning the country into zones of influence that backers of Bashar al-Assad, led by Iran, can directly control and use to advance broader interests. source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/13/irans-syria-project-pushing-population-shifts-to-increase-influence

Western politicians rarely acknowledge the schism between Shia and Sunni Islam. There is nothing remotely comparable to this schism in any other religion in the modern world... Iran still believes its theocracy has rightful authority over Islam under the Shiite model of descent from Mohammed, for example. One of the candidates in the recent Iranian presidential election, cleric Ebrahim Raisi, wears a black turban to signify he is a sayed, a descendant of Mohammed... The royal family of Jordan is seen by some analysts as key to bridging the Sunni-Shiite divide, because the Hashemite ruling dynasty of Sunni Jordan claims direct descent from Mohammed’s family, satisfying the Shiite criteria for authentic leadership of Islam... What is the difference between an Alawite and a Shiite? There are many minor differences in custom and tradition, but the major difference concerns Imam Ali. Recall that Shiites revere Ali as the rightful leader of Islam who should have succeeded Mohammed, and was divinely martyred in death, while Sunnis regard him as a traitor. The Alawites believe he was God incarnate. Some Sunni religious leaders consider them “worse infidels than Christians and Jews,” as one prominent cleric of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood put it in 2013 when calling for a Sunni jihad against them... A school of Sunni Islam that has become increasingly important to American and European politics is Hizmet, a highly organized group founded and led by an imam named Fethullah Gulen. The government of Turkey sees Hizmet as far too organized, prosecuting it (literally) as a vast criminal conspiracy that attempted to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan last year... The Sunni Muslim Brotherhood has been considered for designation as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, but its defenders say not even the Brotherhood is a single entity. They insist it has many chapters, many of which cannot be fairly regarded as extremists or terrorists... Muslims abuse and kill each other over doctrinal conflicts on a horrifying scale. Most of that violence and oppression is not “terrorism.” It comes from military conflicts and government crackdowns on religious minorities... In Bahrain, the government is under fire for suppressing the Shiite majority in its population, with five dead in a recent police raid against a Shiite community. The Bahraini monarchy, in turn, credibly accuses Iran of seeking to destabilize the country by exacerbating Sunni-Shiite tensions. Bahrain’s Sunnis fear they would be brutalized on an epic scale if Shiites overthrow the government. source: http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/05/25/shia-vs-sunni-the-schism-western-politicians-dont-understand-and-wont-discuss/